Like many on here, I was thrilled with the trailer and couldn't wait for this movie to hit the theaters.
Watching the movie, I felt disappointed, like I was sold something that wasn't real because the movie fell really flat. The I thought the acting, the costumes, and the sets were great, but my issue was with the tone, character takes, and general writing
The movie opens with the French queen being led to be executed. It was a very awful event, but the music being played is very lighthearted which creates a sense that the events in the movie aren't taken seriously. This can work for some movies, but the lighthearted tone that we see throughout doesn't work for an intense historical epic
Which takes me to the characters. I feel like the movie does a very reductionist take on them, and that the movie doesn't take either Napoleon or Josephine seriously. Josephine is portrayed as a woman with co-decency and anxiety issues, while Napoleon is portrayed as an idiot who stumbles into power and keeps seeking more power to impress a woman who never tells him that she wants power in the first place. She doesn't come off ambitious herself, and I spent much of the movie wondering what it is that she actually wants or why she even likes this man. There's a scene where he throws a fit and says that she's nothing without him, and later she says that he's nothing without her, but we don't see it. She's not whispering in his ear telling him to go after more and more, instead she spends much of the movie crying or staring moodily into a lake
The classical philosophers and writers were all well aware of what a tyrant was and ambitious people are obsessed with leaving a legacy. Even the biggest ego maniac doesn't seize power for power's sake, rather they seize power because they see something broken in the system that *only* they can fix. In "Gladiator," there's a scene where Marcus Aurelius explains to Maximus what legacy he wants to leave so that he is not remembered as a tyrant who just started wars, and why Maximus must succeed him. We never see this from Napoleon in this movie. No discussion of his philosophy or why he's doing what he's doing. Napoleon himself was complicated. He's primarily remembered as a military general, but he also reformed French laws and the Napoleonic Code is still the widespread law in the world (which, again, were not shown this in this movie). People don't rise to the level that he did without some level of social tact, charisma, and political genius-but we see nothing of that in this film
The movie generally cuts pretty quickly and skips over a lot. One moment Napoleon is married, and the next moment he's suddenly in Egypt, with no discussion of why. One moment he insults the British ambassador (which felt like a scene from Napoleon Dynamite), and the next moment he receives an offer to become king, and the next moment he's being crowned emperor of the French by the Pope himself. Napoleon taking the crown and placing it on his own head is one of the great moments in history, yet this movie treats it very casually
There's also lots of anachronisms that bothered me as a history buff. In a letter to Josephine, Napoleon says that he's invading Russia with the combined armies of France, Poland, ITALY, and GERMANY. I think this is meant to evoke a comparison to Hitler, because Germany and Italy didn't exist as states back then so it would've made no sense for him to say that. Also, at Waterloo, they tell Napoleon that the Prussians are twelve miles away, even the metric system was created during the French Revolution and miles is an English system of measurement anyways
Maybe the Director's cut with the extra hour adds more, but save your money and don't see it in theaters.
Watching the movie, I felt disappointed, like I was sold something that wasn't real because the movie fell really flat. The I thought the acting, the costumes, and the sets were great, but my issue was with the tone, character takes, and general writing
The movie opens with the French queen being led to be executed. It was a very awful event, but the music being played is very lighthearted which creates a sense that the events in the movie aren't taken seriously. This can work for some movies, but the lighthearted tone that we see throughout doesn't work for an intense historical epic
Which takes me to the characters. I feel like the movie does a very reductionist take on them, and that the movie doesn't take either Napoleon or Josephine seriously. Josephine is portrayed as a woman with co-decency and anxiety issues, while Napoleon is portrayed as an idiot who stumbles into power and keeps seeking more power to impress a woman who never tells him that she wants power in the first place. She doesn't come off ambitious herself, and I spent much of the movie wondering what it is that she actually wants or why she even likes this man. There's a scene where he throws a fit and says that she's nothing without him, and later she says that he's nothing without her, but we don't see it. She's not whispering in his ear telling him to go after more and more, instead she spends much of the movie crying or staring moodily into a lake
The classical philosophers and writers were all well aware of what a tyrant was and ambitious people are obsessed with leaving a legacy. Even the biggest ego maniac doesn't seize power for power's sake, rather they seize power because they see something broken in the system that *only* they can fix. In "Gladiator," there's a scene where Marcus Aurelius explains to Maximus what legacy he wants to leave so that he is not remembered as a tyrant who just started wars, and why Maximus must succeed him. We never see this from Napoleon in this movie. No discussion of his philosophy or why he's doing what he's doing. Napoleon himself was complicated. He's primarily remembered as a military general, but he also reformed French laws and the Napoleonic Code is still the widespread law in the world (which, again, were not shown this in this movie). People don't rise to the level that he did without some level of social tact, charisma, and political genius-but we see nothing of that in this film
The movie generally cuts pretty quickly and skips over a lot. One moment Napoleon is married, and the next moment he's suddenly in Egypt, with no discussion of why. One moment he insults the British ambassador (which felt like a scene from Napoleon Dynamite), and the next moment he receives an offer to become king, and the next moment he's being crowned emperor of the French by the Pope himself. Napoleon taking the crown and placing it on his own head is one of the great moments in history, yet this movie treats it very casually
There's also lots of anachronisms that bothered me as a history buff. In a letter to Josephine, Napoleon says that he's invading Russia with the combined armies of France, Poland, ITALY, and GERMANY. I think this is meant to evoke a comparison to Hitler, because Germany and Italy didn't exist as states back then so it would've made no sense for him to say that. Also, at Waterloo, they tell Napoleon that the Prussians are twelve miles away, even the metric system was created during the French Revolution and miles is an English system of measurement anyways
Maybe the Director's cut with the extra hour adds more, but save your money and don't see it in theaters.